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November 05, 2006

Downrigging

This weekend was "Downrigging Weekend" in C-town. A bunch of tall ships arrive en masse, tie up at the docks, and take folks on short sails and dockside tours before bundling up their sails and lines and blocks and flags and various yards and masts for the winter. The Sultana is the only one that winters here in C-town, the rest just come for the festivities and then head off to their respective ports of call. We had the family Westbrook for the day on Saturday and had a lovely time visiting and bearing witness to the fruits of good parenting. More details yonder.

This morning I woke up at the ungodly hour of 8:30 (we had a 3:00am lights out last night, probably due to all the amounts of sugar that we ate with the westbrooks) - I had set up my brand new back-up hard drives last night and crossed my fingers that all the backups went well, so couldn't resist the urge to check on them. Of course, I screwed something up and the backup hadn't worked, so I had to figure it all out. By that time, Iggy was hopping up and down on one leg to get me to take her out, so I got dressed and faced the morning. At the last minute, I thought I should grab my sketchbook and see if there was anything good to draw (it's not every day that you have a tall ship tied up in your backyard to draw).

I warmed up on a bench at the park and did a sketch of the pavilion, which is owned by the college and is host to special events and regatta spectators (and, currently, some weird installation that purports to tell me which road to take in the proverbial wood - I have the feeling that the installationist is young, idealistic, and hasn't actually spent much time on any roads in any proverbial woods, but it was a nice thought anyway):

I had let Iggy off the leash and she was very patiently keeping herself busy until Kelly the Schnauzer appeared, and then I had to get up and keep her from trying to convince Kelly to tear herself off the end of her leash and go running. So, the pavilion went unfinished.

On to the docks. The most impressive boat that showed up this weekend was the Kalmar Nyckel. It is just a remarkable hulk of ship. The other night we stopped by to see it, all lit up - the sky was clear and the moon bright behind the snapping flags at the tops of the three masts, and looking at the stars through the unbelievable tangle of lines the thing made the world look like a movie set. I guess it was the nearly-full moon that gave everything that weird blue glow that they use on TV to show that it's nighttime, but life was really imitating art, and it made me feel like my eyes didn't belong to me. That used to happen to me a lot when I was little (no idea why) but it's really disconcerting when you're old enough to try to wonder about it. Anyway. It's just a beautiful ship (and I'm not the type who gets all crazy about boats, either). I started this sketch of the masthead (is that what it's called? oh no, wait, I mean figurehead. Masthead is something else. That goes at the top of a letter? No, that's letterhead. Oh, wait, masthead is the newspaper title head, right? ... checked with dictionary and yes, I've got it all straight now):

Well, it wasn't going well. Iggy was again being very patient - hanging out at the end of her leash, as close as she could to the shore end of the dock. Lots of people were coming by and, though it wasn't their fault that my sketch was sucking, I'd like to think it was. Marc Castelli showed up, which is kind of like Einstein showing up when you're trying to work out a simple multiplication problem. He's the preeminent local internationally renowned artist (you know, like mom), and does a lot of work featuring fishermen and boaters. I love how he does water, but his sketchbooks are the things I really covet. They are just beautiful. So anyway, apparently he sketched the very same figurehead three years ago. Which is like Einstein telling you, "Hey - 15.5x132? It's 2,046, and I just did that in my head." Not that Marc said it like that - he's actually a very cool and unassuming artist - I guess you have to be to have the access to watermen that he does. They don't go for that artsy-fartsy bullshit. So, Marc was going out in a boat with someone from the Sultana (I think) to get some photos of the ships from the water, and they headed off. I lamely finished off the rest of my sketch - the only part I like is that little sailboat in the background.

Whatever.

So then I figured the detail stuff was getting me down, so I headed back to the little boardwalk area and sketched from farther afield. Iggy trotted around at the end of her leash and got a lot of admiration from people passing by on their way to the boats. She got better and better about people petting her, so I'm guessing she still needs some socialization work. Only once did the leash go springing out from under my flank, and that was when she was trying to skitter away from an old fat basset hound who was apparently too intimidating for her. She stuck her nose in my sketchbook a couple times, leaving some muddy streaks (she likes to eat dirt) as evidence. I think it added to the whole je ne sais quoi.

I'm much happier with this one (saved it for last, you know) - though it's really all wrong. But it gets the general sense of things pretty well.

Posted by ribbu at November 5, 2006 08:22 PM

Comments

wow. he does do great water. that's awesome.

Posted by: ming at November 6, 2006 01:28 AM